The Engineering Economic or is it the Economic of Engineering?

Engineering is a branch of science that innovatively applied the principle of sciences and express it in a very wide variety of things... According to Wikipedia,

Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying technical and scientific knowledge and utilizing natural laws and physical resources in order to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective and meet specified criteria.

The American Engineers' Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the predecessor of ABET[1]) has defined engineering as follows:
“[T]he creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.”[2][3][4]

I believe here in Malaysia our IEM and BEM also have their own definition which more or less similar to what other people around the world is using...

For some people, they do not see any engineers around them, they do not know what the engineer does. They just know that the car can function with atwist of the key and just step on the accelartor pedal. That is how creative and innovative engineering can be.... From a very complex law of physics, thermodynamics, electrical, combustion, aerodynamic and the calculas bla..bla..bla.... which is not easily understood, suddenly it is being expressed into a very easy to use and to maneuver machine - cars... There are many more engineering works around us, most of the things around us have some degree of innovative engineering inside them... The pen, the computers, the light bulb, the television, the radio, the handphone, all is the product of creative engineering. For common people, a light bulb is on just by clicking the swithes, but apart from the switches, there is some thermodynamic, electrical technolgy, metallurgy and other branches of engineering involved... The anode or the filament which is usually made of metal is related to the mining engineering.. The swithches which is usually made of plastic is related to material engineering, the ergonomic design is related to civil or mechanical or even an ergonomic engineering.

The economic of engineering may be related to the degree of engineering approch has succesfully improved the efficiency of the system or the machine. According to Wikipedia, Engineering economics, previously known as engineering economy, is a subset of economics for application to engineering projects. Engineers seek solutions to problems, and the economic viability of each potential solution is normally considered along with the technical aspects. It can also related to the impact of socio-economy or can have a big impact on politics as well... For instance, when we look at the marvels of engineering works such as the handphone or the computers and internet, we could see how well an engineering products has change the lifestyle of the world and have tremendously contributed to the development of a much faster growing economy. We can now communicate more effectively and the usage of email have steadily reduced our expenses for stamps and postal services. The recent development of a hybrid car also offers a new era of transportation technology which aimed at reducing the fuel consumption.

Off course Engineering and Economics may not always be at a same wave pattern. From my experience in the industry, it is a common situation when there are always "issues" when it come to decision involving both technical and commercial matter. I used to work as an economist monitoring the economic of activity of the mineral market around the world. And when it comes to investment, the subject of engineering economics is extremely important to ensure the succes of a project or investment initiatives. It will always be in the interest of the engineers to have the best solutions and best technical capabilities for the company, but from the economics point of view, it is important for the company to always try to save as much as possible, and this may lead to the budget factors and may result to a compromise of quality and technical competency. Regardless, it is not always true that the higher price will offer the better solutions. Some of a more effective solutions are much-much more cheaper compared to the higher pricing.

So when it comes to the economic of engineering, it will always will be the issues regarding the cost, the profits, the losses, the impact to the environment, the impact to the community, the long term and short term issues, the sustainable development issues, bla..bla..bla... I remember clearly when I was studying mining engineering my Professor Dr. Eric Goh always give us a very practical method of learning. He will teach us all the mining methods and he will outlined all the advantages and disadvantages of each of the mining method and from these advantages and disadvantages, we could further discuss on the costing issues and the technical issues, and that really help us a lot in understanding the economics of the mining engineering.

Well, when we recently witness yet another massive landslide tragedy at Bukit Antarabangsa, I just wondering if we could applied the slope stability designs and monitoring strategies for minings at these hillside? Slope stability design and monitoring is a very important issue in mining since almost everyday there will be excavation and without a proper design and monitoring, any landslide can resulted in a massive losses in the mining operation. I believe that safety issues is always paramount and it is always important to ensure that our environment is a safe environment.